Resurgence

by Charles Sheffield

  "I don't suppose you two would like to tell me what the hell you're doin'?"

  "It is the table, Master Nenda." Kallik touched it with a forelimb. "Although we can pass it through the biggest of the cargo hatches, it will first be necessary to remove it from this room. That requires that it be broken into pieces. Indeed, although I had never thought about it before, it is a mystery how it was ever brought in."

  "It wasn't. It was secreted on the spot by a bunch of Doradan Colubrids, an' for the moment it stays here. Archie, get down off that table or you'll be lookin' for a new set of guts."

  "Master Nenda, you specifically declared the table to be expendable."

  "If, Kallik. Didn't I say if? If things get desperate, an' we're not there yet. What I want is an inventory. We need to know the mass of everything that's not nailed down, plus a bunch of things that are. But until that's done, we throw nothin' overboard. Clear enough?"

  "Master Nenda, it will be done exactly as you command."

  "An' you, Archie, shape up an' get useful. If that table has to go outside in bits, maybe you go with it."

  Nenda hurried away double-time through the ship's interior. Kallik was smart, and if she could get it wrong, so could anybody.

  Claudius would not be a problem. Louis found the Polypheme coiled down tight in one of the cabins in a trance of terror. Neither useful nor ornamental—now there was a candidate to throw overboard when you needed to reduce mass. Louis hurried on. He was approaching the hatch through which they had all entered, and this part of the ship was colder than everywhere else. That was surprising. The air circulation system should have taken care of that long ago. Even more surprising was the sight of a group of figures in one of the nearby cabins.

  Hans Rebka, Darya Lang, Sinara Bellstock, E.C. Tally, and Julian Graves. Almost half the available work force. And doing what? Not one damn thing, so far as Louis could see. They were clustered around a display terminal.

  Louis was about to say, "It must be nice to be a guest on board, an' not have to work," when he saw the message on the display.

  Sinara came over to him and grasped his arm. "Ben is outside. We must go after him."

  "His message tells us just the opposite." Louis was still reading. "Besides, we have no idea what he thinks he's up to or where he might have gone."

  Darya said, "We don't know what Ben is doing, but Hans has his suspicions."

  Rebka nodded. "I asked myself a couple of simple questions: What could Ben possibly hope to gain by going outside? And where could he go on the surface, with Marglot in its present condition? The answers are, nothing and nowhere. Most of the time Ben was here he was doped up, so he's seen even less of the planet than we have—and that's only about one square kilometer. But back in the middle of Iceworld, Guardian of Travel told us that a transport system would open now and again, to let us return there if we wanted to. I think Ben went outside to try to find it. He thinks he can use it to get back to the middle of Iceworld."

  Louis stared at Darya Lang and Hans Rebka. "An' do what if he gets there? Things don't look great for us, but his chances are better here than they would be on Iceworld. Does he imagine that Guardian of Travel will drop everythin' an' hustle on over to give us a hand? We don't know much about what Builder constructs do, but we've learned a few of the things they don't. They don't leave places they've been sittin' in for millions of years—'specially to help a bunch of recent arrivals like us." He turned to Sinara. "As for us goin' outside to look, that's a bad idea. It's colder than ever an' the wind is startin' up again. Hope I'm wrong, but we may be in for another storm."

  "And there are new potential troubles of quite a different kind." Julian Graves had been listening in silence, but now he turned to E.C. Tally. "Tell them what you told me, just before we came in here."

  "It is the beetlebacks. Ever since I first encountered them, I have struggled to comprehend their meaning and their mission. This has been a frustrating task, but also a fascinating one. It appears as though there is a complete sharing of information. What one knows, all know. Long ago, I came to the conclusion from their speech that they had been placed on this world for a specific purpose. It is also clear that our arrival came as a total surprise to them. I conjectured that they operated on the assumption that Marglot would lack animal life of every kind. But what were the beetlebacks themselves supposed to do next? From the data available, extensive as that is, I was still unable to determine the nature or timing of that new act. However, it occurred to me that the sudden and surprising cooling of M-2, and hence of Marglot itself, might be a trigger. In the hope of confirming or denying this theory, one hour ago I tuned the equipment of the Have-It-All to the frequency employed by the beetlebacks. I hoped for at best a distant signal, provided perhaps by reflection from a high ionized atmospheric layer—although the weakness of incident radiation from the distant solar primary was not encouraging for the formation of such."

  Nenda glared at Julian Graves, who said, "I think, E.C., you might dispense with certain explanatory details."

  "At the risk of a possible reduced understanding? Very well, if you insist. What I discovered was not a weak signal, but a very strong one. It emanates from forty or fifty kilometers away, and is just one of several similar but weaker signals. Since we saw that the beetlebacks possess no means of ground or air transportation, I am led to another conjecture which I see no way to confirm. Colonies of beetlebacks were placed all over Marglot, before our arrival. Those on the warm hemisphere were completely quiescent until the precipitating event of M-2's cooling. The beetlebacks thrive in a world of cold. They find cold essential to their very existence. This world, together with M-2 and the central star, are all headed toward cold extinction. We, as sources of heat, are now an anomaly on Marglot. The beetlebacks, judging from the changes in their radio signals, are heading this way, and I cannot believe that they come for the purpose of assuring our well-being. They are coming here to advance their cause. They are servants of the Masters of Cold."

  Masters of Cold? Louis wanted to burst out laughing, except that no one else showed that inclination—and he himself could feel the sudden chill in the pit of his belly.

  Julian Graves turned to Darya Lang. "Not Voiders, Professor, or Destroyers. Masters of Cold, able through a variety of measures to draw out and banish heat wherever it may be found. To remove the warmth of animals, the latent heat of gases and liquids, even to end the phoenix reaction within the stars themselves."

  Darya had a sudden memory, a flashback to the surface of Iceworld. Lara Quistner, standing, screaming, crumbling from the feet up as implacable cold ascended her body . . .

  "Humans," she began.

  "And not only humans." Graves's skeletal face was somber, and his misty blue eyes stared at some distant vision. "The evidence was there, even before we left Miranda. We remarked on the condition of the bodies of the Marglotta, and of the Chism Polypheme. How had they died? They were apparently unharmed. But at the microscopic level, cells were ruptured everywhere throughout their bodies. As they would burst, were they instantly and completely frozen. A small group of Marglotta sought to fly far from danger, and to seek help. But by the time they left Marglot it was already too late. The Masters of Cold, or more likely some non-corporeal servant form, were already on board that ship. When it reached Miranda, those cold forms had vanished without trace. But you were right, Professor Lang, and I was wrong. Another force is present in the galaxy, a force as powerful as the Builders themselves. The Masters of Cold are not builders; they are indeed destroyers."

  He added to Nenda, "Now it is more than ever vital that we escape from here, and carry this news back to our own Orion Arm. Meanwhile, I will seek to determine the current location of the beetlebacks. They pose an increasing threat."

  Graves swept out, accompanied by Tally, Darya Lang, and Sinara Bellstock. Louis was left staring at just Hans Rebka.

  "What's he think we're doing? Sittin' on our butts laughin' an' scratchin'?"


  "He's an ethicist, Darya is a theorist, Tally is a calculator, and Sinara is a trainee. This thing is up to you and me, Nenda—or would you rather rely on the rest of them?"

  "Don't try to scare me. I'm scared enough already. Got ideas?"

  "You say we can fly atmospheric. Suppose we do that, get as high and as fast as we can, and then turn on the Have-It-All's space drive. Might that do it?"

  "Thought of that a long time ago, an' Kallik checked it out. We won't make it to space unless our mass is way down."

  "You trust Kallik's answer?"

  "Hell, no. Anybody can be wrong, even Kallik. But Atvar H'sial and E.C. Tally came up with the same result. We can get off the ground, but not off the planet. The jury is still out on how well we'd do with the ship stripped to the bare bones."

  "Suppose you were to fly atmospheric to the top speed you can reach, then dump those engines and switch to orbital thrustors."

  "It's easy to see it's my ship you're tearin' to bits, an' not yours. But I looked at that, too. You can't dismantle and dump the atmospheric engines without a crew outside the ship. If you want to be unscrewin' nuts and bolts an' strippin' off engines while you're hangin' on the outside at Mach Two, be my guest. I put your chances of stayin' there more than twenty seconds at one in a million."

  "You thought of it already."

  "I did. But keep comin' up with them ideas. I just said anyone can be wrong, an' I'm sure in the group."

  "A tight spot."

  "Damn right." Nenda studied Hans Rebka's face. "You know the difference between you an' me?"

  "You're a crook, and I'm not?"

  "Don't be a smartass. The big difference is, we both know we're in deep trouble, an' I hate it. But you get off on it. Come on, admit it."

  "I was raised for trouble, Nenda. I was born on Teufel."

  "Yeah, yeah. 'What sins must a man commit,' an' all that stuff. I've heard it before, I don't need to hear it again. Question is, what do we do now?"

  "We finish the inventory of the Have-It-All. We strip out everything we can do without. Then we strip out some things we believe we can't do without. Then we fly. And if we still have too much mass, I know a way to reduce it some more. You and I flip a coin, and the loser jumps overboard."

  "Sounds fair to me."

  "You have a two-headed coin, right?"

  "How'd you guess." Nenda walked over to the port and stared out at Marglot's barren but beautiful landscape. "Fifty-five below. Think that Ben Blesh is somewhere out there?"

  "If he is, he'd better be under cover. It's blowing up another storm."

  "We better not stay too long on the surface ourselves, or we'll be here forever."

  "I'll offer you a better deal than the last one. If we're too heavy when the time comes, I'll go outside and take my chances with Ben Blesh. If we're not too heavy and we do make it out alive, you'll owe me one. We'll go back together to the Phemus Circle and try to overthrow the government."

  "You crazy? You've got me confused with a guy who cares about other people. I'll stick with the coin toss. Come on." Nenda led the way from the room. "Let's see what else may have to be chucked out of here, an' break my sorrowin' heart."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Iceworld again.

  One of Ben Blesh's survival trainers had offered a warning: Be extra careful if you are ever forced to operate when sick or injured, because in such circumstances your senses provide a distorted view of reality. A familiar setting may seem to change beyond recognition.

  Sound advice, but the converse situation had not been addressed. Suppose that you returned to a place you had only seen before when in shock and in pain?

  Ben looked around, and felt certain that this setting was new to him. He had few clear memories of the interior of Iceworld, but surely he had never been in any place remotely like this.

  He stared the length of the great chamber in which he stood, then looked side to side and at last overhead. He realized in that moment that he was wrong. He was standing at the base of a gigantic horizontal cylinder, hundreds of meters long and broad in proportion. The sides, studded with "light fixtures" from which no light emerged, curved away and up to meet far above his head. Suspended from that distant ceiling hung a familiar shape: a medusa's head of tubes, wires, and tentacles, all grossly enlarged. He was standing within a robodoc, exactly like the one on the Have-It-All. Either it was expanded hundreds of times, or Ben had been reduced to the size of a fly. In his mind, the robodoc stood as a symbol of healing and security. How could anything else in the universe know that?

  But this confirmed his conviction that he had never been here before. It also increased his confusion as to what to do next. When Hans Rebka had been in charge and Ben was injured, all decisions had been made for him. Now he had to act for himself.

  His suit sensors showed reduced pressure and an unbreathable atmosphere, but as he watched it climbed to a density and composition that he could live with. Apparently something knew he was here—wherever "here" might be—and it did not intend to kill him.

  He opened his faceplate and began to walk along the floor of the giant cylinder. It was probably wasted effort, since anything that knew he was here could presumably find him no matter where he went. The walk was for his benefit alone. He needed to do something, after that interminable wait in the snow when he had wondered if he would ever move again.

  His first impression of the cylinder had been that it went on forever, but as he walked he could see that he was approaching a place where everything—floor, walls, ceiling—abruptly ended. He walked on, to the point where one more step would take him into space, and looked down. An endless sea of gray lay below, without any reference point to provide a sense of scale. For all he knew, the fog might be one meter from his feet, or a thousand kilometers. The cylinder hovered over a void of indeterminate extent.

  Ben could take that final step out over the edge and see what happened. All his survival training—which admittedly had so far been of no use whatsoever—argued against it. He turned, intending to walk back the length of the cylinder.

  Lara Quistner stood waiting, maybe thirty meters away. She was wearing her suit, as he had last seen her in life. An equal distance behind her was an identical Lara, with another behind that. A whole line of Laras waited on the central axis of the cylinder, diminishing away into the distance.

  Ben would accept the reality of the cylinder. He had little choice, since he was standing on it. Lara, or an infinite line of Laras, was another matter. They must be the products of his imagination.

  He walked forward to the nearest waiting figure, reached out, and touched his gloved hand to her faceplate. The shape in front of him rippled and started to change. At the same time, the long line of image figures moved in rapidly to coalesce with the first one. The surface he had touched brightened. In less than a minute Ben stood before a shining spherical body. As the last ripples died away on the silver surface, a slender neck with a pentagonal head emerged from the topmost part.

  Ben drew in his first deep breath since leaving the surface of Marglot. If every journey began with a single step, he had just completed a second one. Now to try for a third. Was the object in front of him Guardian of Travel, or would he have to start everything over from the beginning?

  "Can you hear and understand what I am saying?"

  The initial reaction was not encouraging. The silver globe sank into the surface of the cylinder, until only a small upper part was visible.

  "I have returned from the world to which you sent us. You said that we might return."

  The long-necked sphere remained silent, but it slowly began to reemerge from the floor. That had to count as progress of sorts.

  "I would like to learn more about the planet to which you sent us."

  "A special world."

  At last, words.

  "Did you say that a super-vortex lies at the center of that world?" This would be one hell of a time for Ben to learn that in his shocked and injured co
ndition he had dreamed up the whole previous conversation.

  "A super-vortex exists at the center. That is correct."

  "Is it a transport vortex?"

  "No. There is no way that it can be used as such. It was placed there long, long ago by our creator, to serve a quite different purpose."

  "Will it work now, as it did then?"

  "We do not know."

  Not so good. "If it can still work, is it controlled at the planet I just came from?"

  "It is controlled from here, and only from here."

  Fifty-fifty on the answers he hoped for. As good as it was likely to get. But the difficult part lay ahead. Guardian of Travel seemed friendly enough to humans, but all its allegiance must lie with the Builders. Also, its sentience was inorganic and presumably completely logical. You had to imagine that you were trying to persuade E.C. Tally—and hope you remembered at least some of the facts correctly from the last time you were here.

  "As servant to the Builders you once provided access to many worlds, including the surface of this one. Little by little, the service that you provide was diminished; not because the Builders wished it so, but because another group has been at work, destroying what the Builders made. Now you have access to only one world."

  "One world; but a special world to the Builders."

  "Special, but not special enough to save it. Unless you take action, that last world will suffer the same fate as all the others." This was the trickiest piece of what Ben had to say. From most points of view Marglot was already a dead world. "That world is not yet in the hands of the Builder adversaries. It can perhaps be saved from possession by them, if you take the right action here."

  "If it can be saved by such action on our part, do you wish to return to it?"

  That was a question to which Ben had given not one moment's thought. Go back? It was his turn to say, "I do not know. Why do you ask?"

  "Because connection to the super-vortex at the heart of the world can be made at any time, while use of a transport vortex to the surface is possible only at precise times, when the configuration of other events permits it."